18G7.] RANGE OF SEMNOPITHKCUS ENTELLUS. 949 



Himalaya within 200 miles of their outlying ranges known as the 

 Siwaliks. 



With regard to its alleged occurrence in Ceylon, Cassell, in his 

 ' Popular Natural History,' has been completely misled by trusting 

 too implicitly to the lying legends of the Ramayau, in which tiie 

 exploits of Hoonoomaun, in that island, are recounted. The species 

 which in that locality bears this name is not, as we learn from the 

 indefatigable labours of Mr. Blyth, the continental Entellus, but the 

 Seinnopithecus thersites, Elliot, a totally distinct species, which is 

 restricted to that island ; and the only other Monkeys there found, 

 if we except those which may have been imported as captives, are the 

 S, cephalopterus, S. priamus, S. ursinus, and Macacus pileatus*. 



Then, again, as to its alleged occurrence in Nipal and Bhotan, 

 Cassell erroneously informs us (and not Cassell only, for Mr. Ogilby 

 long since did the same before him) " that, though a native of the 

 hot plains of India, it is able to sustain the rigors of a much colder 

 climate." 



I have shown, however, above, that it cannot bear even the slight 

 change to Muttra and Bindrabun, "The monkeys of this species," 

 continues Cassell, " ascend the Himalaya wherever wood is to be had; 

 they are found in Nipal, a lofty mountain ridge, a great portion of 

 which is always covered with snow, for its most elevated peaks are 

 the highest mountains on the globe ; and Turner even informs us 

 that he met with these monkeys on the Alpine Plains of Bhotan." 



Yet all this, although somewhat confident and high sounding, 

 becomes in reality perfectly worthless when we call to mind the fact 

 that Turner was no naturalist, and has evidently fallen into the 

 fashionable error of confounding with the Entellus of the plains 

 either the mountain Lungoor, or the Semnopithecus pileatus, or S. 

 harbei (the two latter restricted to the south-eastern mountains) — an 

 error from which Cassell evidently could not relieve him, and which 

 has been repeated since Turner's day, by more competent observers, 

 when the above-mentioned species had not, as now, been all recog- 

 nized as distinct. 



Now it was this very tenderness of constitution and inability of 

 the Entellus to bear up against great changes of climate and tem- 

 perature that made me, several years ago, contend in epistolu, with 

 certain naturalists, against supposing the mountain S. schistaceus to 

 be identical with the lowland Hoonoomaun, as likewise that the 

 Rhesus should, on the score of climate, be held to be distinct from 

 the supposed diminutive Rhesus of the mountains. My reasoning 

 was not then admitted as conclusive ; and as my opponents were men 

 of weight, I temporarily gave in and bided my time. Yet the Lun- 

 goor is now acknowledged to be distinct from the Entellus, and I 

 have acquired the means of proving the Rhesus of the plains to be 

 equally distinct from the Bunder of the mountains. Nipal, however, 

 is not exactly "a mountain ridge, a great portion of which is always 

 covered with snow," but is, on the contrary, a rather warm valley 

 of no great elevation, situated far to the south of the snowy ridge, 

 * J. A. S. B. xvi. p. 1271 ; Cat. Mamm. Mus. As. Soc. Bengal. 



